it’s my cooking night and i’m in the middle of making heaps of baked potatoes when marÃa comes in the kitchen and announces that there is a beautiful family in front of the house. oh… lotte and wim and yoran and arwen have arrived. what a pleasure…
house meeting
a house meeting this evening during which we get to talk a about guests and hospitality.
1/ mihui remains with us. a bit of a strange transition. she came to the house through her old school friend cynthia, who actually insists on charging her rent for the month that she’d be staying. a month in which cynthia is kind of pushing her to find a job, a house, a life, while mihui wants to catch her breath after NY law firms and hang out unemployed for a while. then came the moment we realized: she could live in my room in august, and in marÃa’s in september, when we’re back in europe. the question of rent is brought up and of course marÃa and i insist that there is no need for mihui to pay rent to us (remember marie curie…). the situation is a bit uncomfortable. for cynthia – who must be interpellated in some way – and also a bit for leta who seeks to keep peace. but mihui remains with us.
2/ i bring up how offensive cynthia’s remark, in front of a guest (cooking for the whole house…) was. this is how she takes my comment. first it’s about a deeper meaning, an underlying problem of negative energy between both of us. i resist the non-acknowlegement of what happened in the kitchen. when i explain again why i find what happened unacceptable, it becomes something else (aided by peace keeper leta): cultural difference. what in “my culture” is not done is an innocent situation from cynthia’s perspective. (leta affirms, yes, for her friend jenn from new orleans it would also be not done – do you see the connection? – but in california it is different.)
you know what, i settle for this. why? perhaps cause part of me got convinced that sociability and notions of community in this place are far off from the things i feel connected to and that it’s impossible to tackle the whole of it. “my culture” then becomes a way of protecting some things to which i’m very attached and unwilling to compromise. moreover, “cultural difference”, “different life-styles” is a language that is understood here. it works. it worked before – when i was hesitating whether i would live into this house or into the student coop i had a conversation with leta in which i insisted that i could only join the house if it was able to accomodate the fact that i would have lots of guests for long periods of time and that i would be back to europe for substantial periods of time. the particular discourse of communal living in the washington house is about “supporting each other life-styles” and this is how leta translated my concerns at the time: if that is your life-style and we want you in the house then that means we are willing and able to support your life-style. with the beautiful marÃa connection-companionship and the flow of our beautiful guests in the last two months the house has changed a lot. having a shared ground between us that enables another kind of daily communal living makes all the difference and works in contagious ways. but somehow i don’t expect that we’ll manage to create that kind of common ground between all of our house-mates. i wouldn’t even know where to start with lost-in-new-age cynthia’s relationship to money. and this is where “culture” (oh… not for a moment do i think that hospitality is a “flemish” or “european” thing, don’t get confused with this part of the story…) and “life-style” seem to work.
let there be no misunderstanding: i would like it to be otherwise. “different” has a negative function here: protection, liberal public space in which we tolerate all our differences, cultural relativism, suburbia-subjectivity. i mean, really, what would be the formulation if we’d be describing this “culture” cynthia claims to be different: so your culture or life-style is about charging excessive rent to unemployed old-time friends and asking money when someone joins us for a meal? interesting, adds the anthropologist, tell me more of these cultural habits of yours…
wars
yesterday night sahar and i spoke with sarah in beirut. super active super alive. in the face of israeli bombing and the absence of a government the groups and networks she’s connected to began to organise the relief work in their neighborhood. in more than 20 schools, for more than 8000 people, numbers growing by the hour. a sense of empowerment in making a difference, grassroots politics “taking over” – obviously very fragile but also contagious. don’t stop protesting over there in the west, in the states, she insists.
we know – but how. the demo at the israeli consulate in SF felt all but empowering or making a difference. one must be connected to others to do something in any case, and in santa cruz there doesn’t seem much to connect to. (we regularly cross people, like in our own house, that haven’t heard about this war.) i’m drawn to europe and the networks and ways of navigating that i’ve know for so long. i decide to begin posting on the nextgenderation list, knowing well that it’s not a place where one can take for granted that people find it necessary to respond to the violence and injustices of this war. it seems precisely a good reason to do so. the overwhelming question of how to create and affirm networks and political connections that are capable of acting in times and wars like these…
the global action day demanding the end of the death penalty for homosexuality in iran, on the 19th – the day on which the two teenagers were hung in Mashad last year. sahar had send me an informal statement by the lgbt section of the Human Rights Watch with an elaborate and nuanced argumentation of what makes this action day politically problematic. the HRW piece is actually much softer than some of us would call these lgbt – and feminist – politics that either willfully position themselves within the belligrent clash of civilisations paradigm or chose to ignore or not see the geo-political context which we’re inevitably part of, wether we like it or not. there are no witnesses, as they say, only participants. another overwhelming question of how to create a “not in our name” resistance among our feminist and lgbt networks and friends…
wars on all sides. connecting the dots.
trying to recognize where we are in those dots,
and what can be done from there.
meanwhile the grassroots organizing in beirut that sarah is part of
has a blog with more info: sanayeh reliefcenter
help out if you can.
silence
back in santa cruz. i switch my computer and the back-ground image of my desktop hits me in the face. beirut. a breath-taking skyline of a city reconstructing itself, yet another fragile skyline that does not exist anymore. a long mail from kristy, she got out of beirut on a last al italia flight before the airport was bombed. angry. waiting in italy to get back. waiting. i think back of our email exchange before the war: how living in beirut, with her lebanese family, wasn’t always the easiest thing after having been raised in california. how the invitation to my “american” birthday bbq had made her homesick. now there’s only one place she aches to be, she’s determined to return – tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after…
back in santa cruz.
drowning in a pool of silent unmendable sadness today.
war in the world, again.
artificial paradise peace here.
obscene global divisions of labor.
class
first in a mexican restaurant in the mission and then at diana’s place we dig deeper into class in america. starting point: the absence of reflections and political positions and strategies grounded in class as a social conflict. while it so obviously profoundly structures this society. while there is a language and political struggle and intelligence about race, gender, sexuality. speaking about race indeed often contains and addresses class matters. but mostly not as such, and it remains inadequate to get a grip on the class structure of this society. perhaps there’s something about the disappearance of the industrial working class in this country, but that also doesn’t do the trick: there’s an army of lumpenproletariat all over the place (notably in america’s army).
we already pondered upon how we were immediately attracted to the kind of marxist groups that we don’t necessarily have much affinity or patience with at home (i mean, i remember the brief moment of concern when at the first meeting of the Students and Workers for Justice someone of the lovely group wrote “All Wealth is Created by Labor” on the black board.), but the attraction lies in the recognition of the fact that class profoundly shapes this society – an acknowledgement which is generally quite rare.
so what’s up with class in this place? the ideology of the American Dream, with its principles and abstract promise that everybody can transcend the conditions in which they were born, can climb at least a few but potentially many steps up that ladder. a hegemonic ideology which leaves space for revendications about gender and race inequality or discrimination: it is possible to create some kind of a consensus around the fact that everybody’s access to that ladder should be equal, and that whatever holds specific (groups of) people back, outside of the will and responsibility of the individual, is unfair and should be eradicated. clearly not all feminist, anti-racist and civil rights political claims function on those (liberal and equal opportunities) grouds, but a part does. class struggle, however, doesn’t really function on those grounds, “class discrimination” (or “class pride”…) is kind of besides the issue. instead, a strong political perspective on class requires such a dissociation with the American Dream and vision on social antagonism and struggle (the end of “win-win” situations)… does all of this mean that the American Dream still works? let’s just say that its blatent failure in the daily lives of most people isn’t (yet) translated in scattering the ideological hegemonies. there’s much burn-out and drop-out and seeking healing and especially silence silence silence. i guess that means it still works…
war
talking to sahar from a payphone in the mission and we decide to meet at the israeli consulate. the email from sarah in beirut yesterday. the news – hezbollah’s bold kidnap move yesterday, immediately met by the israeli collective /civilian punishment called “Operation Just Reward”, one of these nasty belligrent eufemisms meaning air strikes on Lebanon. yesterday, or perhaps it all happened earlier, this part of the world runs hopelessly behind…
on the BART i see a young guy with the imprint of a fatima hand dripping blood and “Jews for a Free Palestine” on his t-shirt. i ask him and yes, he’s going to the demo. on our way he tells me about the groups that took the initiative: Al-Awda (The Palestine Right to Return Coalition) and a Palestine Solidarity alliance in which his group participates. he also gives me the latest news: the airport in Beirut is bombed. and he mentions that there’s a pro-israel counter demo (strange how that possibility hadn’t crossed my mind…)
while the protesters denouncing israeli violence stand on the side-walk in front of the israeli consulate, people are facing the other side of the street, where israeli flags and peace signs prevail. traffic on montgomery street continues as usual – we are not many, perhaps 150, they are not many, perhaps a bit less, not enough to occupy the street. and then police makes sure both sides remain on their side-walk. so we shout at/against each other. (those who are there to denounce isreali violence have an advantage: we have a microphone.) meanwhile cars drive by and people on both sides ask them to honk for support. of course, a drive-in demo, why would you get out of your car for anything, after all this is america…
disheartening in many ways. the tiny small number of people. with a few exceptions, a striking absence of comments on the attacks on lebanon or the war-waging in gaza of the last couple of weeks. instead the same old slogans, with a déjà -vu feeling that didn’t give us much hope that a demo like this would change a thing. and most of all: the rhetorical monopoly on the word “peace” on their side. “Israel wants peace”, “pro-Israel pro-peace”. at some point the zionist crowd began to chant “Where are your peace signs?” accompanied by righteous attitudes and triumphant smiles. “No justice no peace” was the (amplified) response. which is very true, but it didn’t work to break the framework that a regime that causes so much violence is really about peace and security…
we were there because of this consuming urge “to do something”. but the whole spectacle made us feel even more powerless. still, there is no other option than to do something. but we’ll need all the brains and hearts and hands we can get to figure out what can be done…
for more on this and other actions over here in the bay area, see http://www.indybay.org/international/palestine
mission dolores
san francisco. une nuit n’est pas assez pour dire au revoir à cette ville qu’elle aime autant. on se tient dans les bras l’un de l’autre avant cette ligne que seulement les passagers peuvent croisser. giulia retourne dans son jungle urbain de londres. et je retourne à la ville avec un coeur leger, ou plutot soutenu, carried, par toute cette amitié et amour. avec chaque pas dans le mission je me sens plus remplie de ce bonheur qu’on partage. une journée merveilleuse, comme ce monsieur sans-abri me dit, et si je pouvais lui donner un peu d’argent (appellé si ironiquement “change”…) pourqu’il ait un repas aujourd’hui. parfois on est si heureuse que tout le corps l’expire, que cela contamine tout autour. quelle promenade au mission, pleine de rencontres et de soleil. oh giulia, t’étais là , tu sais?
can’t wait to share the mission with sahar. i go to the mission dolores park and install myself in the grass with a Jarritos limón, read the Olive Readers. the world of U.S. empire as we know it gets destroyed through ecological crises, and is re-shaped along the lines of economic power of different companies, dividing the territories and global production of commodities among them. No more countries or political entities such as nation-states and governments – the unities of power are The Companies and their boards and CEOs. People are not citizens but workers for a particular company, bound to that company. (uncannily non-science fiction for a science-fiction novel…)
“The old countries had disappeared a long time ago, their names and languages forbidden, their peoples and histories suddenly non-existent. Thousands of men, women and children were secretly sent out to space to form new colonies, but none survived. Countless others disappeared and were never accounted for, although rumours circulated that they had been sent to work camps to be retrained as the world re-created itself. Nationalities melted away, although some individuals managed to salvage tiny fragments of their old languages and their customs, drawing on a distant memory of oral histories and the subversively foraged books. Individuals were stripped of any sense of belonging, and torn from their communities and families at whim. There were mass transportations of people to camps where minds were altered, memories stripped and bodies trained to obey.”
The underground resistance in this world is grounded in finding and keeping books from before the take-over by the Companies, in reading and translating those books (the resistance is called the Readers), in reclaiming memory from Company fiction, in locating oneself in a secret genealogy working towards the moment when an underground movement has the resources and opportunity to overthrow power. Whether the underground resistance manages to transform this world or not, will be revealed in the last chapter, which i haven’t read yet…
recipes of kinds
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lots of things to celebrate – sahar’s arrival in our house, giulia’s last night in santa cruz, 6 months of united states behind our teeth and a beautiful house – and so we must have an iranian dinner. sahar came well equiped, with spices and utensiles, to cook us some amazing food. (ah, remember that it’s the iranian cuisine that gave the first unmendable blow to my vegetarianism…) |
i’d write you down the recipes for tachin and more if my thoughts were not so preoccupied with recipes of living together and hospitality. remember that sociability and conceptions of living and doing life together are “different” in this place? join me in considering two events around our iranian dinner as an educational excercise.
first there was sweet leta who, yesterday evening when we announced that sahar would make us an iranian meal, jokingly asked whether we’d be eating eye balls. (in another conversation she had asked where sahar was from and subsequently inquired if tehran was a town. the kind of naivity that apparently has its legitimate place in santa cruz). we came up with the perfect response: after having called the family to table and before serving the delicious food, we put a “specially for leta” small plate on the table with ammon’s creation of two halves of litchis in which pieces of black olives made the irises. the “you got me” laughter of leta and the rest of our table guests made clear we scored.
then there was lost-in-the-new-age cynthia who ran into the kitchen while talking on her cellphone, looking for something in the fridge and exchanging some things with us while still talking on her cell phone, and as she heard me say that we had quite some guests tonite, she said that we shouldn’t forget that guests should chip in for the food. all of this while she was still talking on her cell phone and sahar was cooking an elaborate iranian meal for the house. i started to feel angry. “well, there are different ways to relate to money,” was the first thing that came to my mind. (as mihui says, for somebody who’s all about spirituality the level of materialism and attachment to money is amazing… a spirituality which is all about money…) she probably had no clue of what i could be refering to; in any case she insisted on asking guests for money again. i told her that this was so offensive. she was gone soon after that, and since then i’m having fantasies about the next house meeting in less than a week… to be continued…
garden of eden – the return
| giulia comes back from san francisco full of advertures and incredible stories of new age spirituality of her own, and as we are jumpy and laughing and sharing it’s clear that we should jump in the car (mihui’s) and go to the garden of eden. another circle, as we went there two days after giulia got here and now it’s two days before she leaves. for sahar and mihui it’s a first time meeting with the redwoods, and i’m all happy be the redwood story teller. doesn’t matter if they are not true, giulia laughs, they are beautiful. a moment of indignation – what do you mean, not true?!? but i guess she’s right. |  |
our arrival coincides with that of the old train, from the good ol’ times when santa cruz was still connected to the american rail track network – imagine that pleasure. (before they dynamited the tunnels that cut through the hills separating santa cruz from the rest of the world, as a way of sabotaging potential japanese invasion in the 1940s – another story that might not be true, didier and i still have a bet for a bottle of champagne on this one…). the train is now spending its old days taking visitors from the santa cruz boardwalk all the way up to Henry Cowell state park and back.
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we cross the san lorenzo river, the train tracks and find the garden of eden. it was different this time, the story of the garden of eden continues to unfold. first i must tell you, there’s nothing to do about it (i think i don’t even have a bathing suit, or at least i don’t remember last time i saw it) but i swim naked. okay, it must also be said that swimming is definately an overstatement. i step into the water till it is too cold to get in any further, and that happens quite quickly around here. and giulia also swims (yes, she really does) naked. this is not different from last time, when marÃa swimmed semi-naked as well. but no doubt last time didier’s presence, as he sat in the shade of the tree on the river banks, made a difference. |
this time sahar and mihui were sitting under that very same tree, getting increasingly nervous after a little while. as it seemed that we attracked a particular kind of annoying creatures: young fraternity-style men holding on to a beer can. the first one came while we were still sun bathing, mumbled if he could join us or if we wanted to have a conversation or something along the lines. i interrupted our conversation for a very brief moment to look him in the eyes and say as firmly as i could “no, thank you, goodbye” and resumed what we were doing as if he disappeared into the air. it seemed clear enough, in her accounts of the story afterwards mihui kept on saying “how much more clear can you get.” but they kept on sticking around. i kind of like the strategy of completely ignoring in these kind of situations, like a magical drawing of an invisible but strong boundary around our company of four. emphasising the point that they simply have no access to us, no point of entry, no impact on us. admittingly, it didn’t work to get them away: they kept on coming and hanging around and paying much attention to us – no matter how little attention we paid to them. then sahar and mihui started to propose us towels to wrap around us. in such situations i can’t help refusing the cover – when i mean no impact, i try to take that as far as i can… we couldn’t stay very long this afternoon, so soon after we had become the center of attention for frat-boys in the garden of eden, we left, immersed in our conversations and company like when we came, and without granting them the acknowlegdement of a look or a changed pace. makes you wonder how many of these frat-boys pathetically roam the garden of eden looking for some entertainment which they are unable to create on their own.
full circle
the moon is amazing tonight. as if i see her for the very first time, no i’ve never saw her like this before. a hugh ivory nocturnal sun. sahar and i walk by the beach. that’s where to approach her, just besides the ocean. the waves bring sparks of the glistering silvery light to the shore. it is 6 months ago today that we set foot on this continent.
after enjoying a family meal in our house and a walk on the beach, Pacific Avenue is quite desolate on a monday night. as eating and drinking places are closing, our plan to raise glasses on this anniversary, which seems more bitter than sweet, can only be done in Lulu Carpenter’s – cups of hot chocolote. but this is one of the places i like in this town, and in our sweet home the brandy awaits us. thanks sahar for being here.